BOOKS

Barley Break — An Elizabethan Songbook with Arrangements for the Appalachian Dulcimer

“The sweet sound of the Appalachian dulcimer lends itself with good grace to the music of the Elizabethan era,” says Lorraine in her introduction to this truly distinctive songbook. Originally published in 1977 and now back in print, this new, expanded edition of Barely Break provides helpful playing instructions for 24 Elizabethan songs—each one accompanied with dulcimer tablature, standard notation, and lyrics. Includes favorites like “Month of Maying,” “Hey-Ho, Nobody Home,” and “Greensleeves,” as well as less familiar musical treasures, all of which will be welcome additions to any repertoire. A classic that any musician will find invaluable.

The Magic Dulcimer

A complete instructional book for the mountain dulcimer by this noted teacher and performer. Lorraine’s expertise is unmatched in the dulcimer community, and she has distilled her 20 years of playing and ten years of teaching into this primer, text, and mini-thesis. The 38 arrangements with tablature will provide even the most experienced player with new material. Thirty woodcuts by Mary Azarian illuminate the book.

Second-Hand Coat — Poems New & Selected

This collection, with 45 new poems, chronicles the work of a voice swept by loss, love, the facts of nature, and the curse of the literary life. This reprint was first published by David Godine in 1987.

“Ruth Stone’s work is dazzling, original, fearless, funny, and deeply moving. She is, for me, one of the most exciting and powerful poets writing today.” — Sharon Olds

Who Is the Widow’s Muse?

The 52 poems in this outstanding new collection form a cycle that explores the grief and loneliness epitomized by “the widow” but shared by all. As with all her work, the poems are written with a candor and honesty that is refreshingly wild, even a little mad. The poems are illuminated with seven illustrations by Phoebe Stone, Ruth’s daughter.
“The old humor and pain are here, but in a crazy crystalline form. A notice should be placed on the book: not for widows only! Anyone can feel what she’s saying.” — Sally Fiedler

Body India

Elizabeth McKim explores poetry as narrative with her poems about Bombay and Benares, India. Coming out of two trips to India, the poems re-create the unique feel of these cities. You will know the people and the sounds and smells of their lives after reading these poems. Eleven photographs by Karen Moss, a noted Boston-based artist, and Cary Wolinsky, a contract photographer for National Geographic, illuminate the poems.
"A lovingly produced collection. Both words and images are remarkably sensitive and will assist in our understanding of this desperate country. And why it continues to fascinate." - Raymond Nadeau, The Boston Globe

The Hungry Tigress — Buddhist Myths,
Legends & Jataka Tales

In this definitive edition, completely updated and rewritten with expanded commentaries and two new sections, Rafe Martin brings together a fascinating array of stories from the Buddhist tradition. The previous edition published by Parallax Press, won an Anne Izard Storyteller’s Choice Award, and the stories have been anthologized in collections such as Soul Food, Best-Loved Stories Told at the National Storytelling Festival, and Peace Tales. Told and developed by Rafe over many years, these stories include legends of the historical Buddha’s birth, life, and enlightenment as well as traditional jataka tales—stories of the Buddha in his former births, often appearing in animal form. A section of later tales contains original stories by Rafe, two of which, “Kogi, the Priest” and “Digit,” can be heard in told versions on his CDs Ghostly Tales of Japan and Animal Dreaming. In many of these seemingly simple tales, wise animals teach humans important lessons about the central Buddhist principles of wisdom, heroic action, nonviolence and compassion. From the familiar legend of the Buddha’s Enlightenment, to the title story of a tenderhearted prince who offers his body to a starving tigress and her cubs, to a twentieth-century tale based on the heroic act of a World War II pilot, these stories are imbued with deep interest in the natural world and empathy for all things living.

A complete section of detailed commentaries provides essential background information and analysis of each story. In addition, two thoughtful essays explore the relevance of jataka tales to us today, and how the stories can be used to teach and guide our lives. The book artfully draws together Buddhist scholarship, story-as-teaching, folktales, and myth into what is both an engaging story book and an informative resource, sure to delight and enlighten all readers.

“Its gentle, wise stories offer a world view that provides an excellent springboard for discussion of personal and communal responsibility.”
— Gerald Fierst, The Yarnspinner

The Boy Who Loved Mammoths

Winner of a 1996 Parent's Choice Gold Award and chosen as a 1996 Spring Pick of the Lists by the American Booksellers Association, this is the story of Will, a boy who believes that mammoths exist. When Will finally meets his mammoth in a snowstorm, the real threat of danger clashes with the equally real power of Will’s imagination. With its rich language and penetrating vision, this book will entrance children and adults alike. Will's tale demonstrates the creative power of the imagination and will inspire readers to have faith in theirs. This is the original literary version of Rafe’s acclaimed picturebook Will’s Mammoth, illustrated by Caledcott Award–winner Stephen Gammell. The magic and delight of this tale is brought to life by the 22 illustrations, done in reverse with white quache on black paper, by award-winning artist Richard Wehrman. You can also hear Rafe’s told version of this tale on the CD, Rafe Martin Tells His Children’s Books.

The Beautiful Cloth – Stories & Proverbs of Ghana

This collection of 24 stories and 129 proverbs provides a unique look at how a cultures spiritual life and its folklore influence each other. In 2013, it received a Storytelling World Honor as an outstanding collection of stories. Sister Rosina says of her storytelling, “Storytelling for me is a great ministry in that it is a way of conveying to people great truths about life. In my country of Ghana, in West Africa, stories are used to teach morals, ethics, spirituality, hospitality, and most important of all to help form a persons character. I grew up on stories and I have come to treasure them because they are perpetual educational tools.

120 pages 6X9 $16.95 Item # 053
ISBN: 978-0938756-76-7 Published 2010

Flying Against The Wind

The exciting and true story of Cato Bontjes van Beek, a young non-Jewish German executed in 1943 for anti-Nazi resistance.

Flying Against The Wind is Ina R. Friedman’s stunning biographical portrait of Cato Bjontrs van Beek, a gifted young woman whose extraordinary courage, spirit, and sense of justice led her to join a small group of non-Jewish German who rejected Hitler’s ‘master plan” and worked actively for the restoration of individual rights and human dignity. Her story is one of romance and intrigue, of exceptional bravery, and above all compassion for one’s fellow beings. It is finally, a testament to the power of the human spirit, a timeless saga of a real-life heroine who will captivate and inspire readers from first page to last.

Escape or Die

In this extraordinary collection of true stories, some new to this edition, 12 Jewish men and women—all under the age of 20 at the time—recount their incredible tales of surviving the Holocaust. Covering the years 1933 to 1948 and encompassing ten countries and as many destinations, these stories of escape are more than dramatic adventure tales and are particularly moving for young people. Filled with episodes of luck, courage, endurance, and ingenuity, each first-person narrative is an authentic and moving testimony to the human struggle for life against all odds and all costs.

AHHHH! A Tribute to Brother Blue and Ruth Edmonds Hill

Various

They are unforgettable, this bedecked, scat-speaking storyspinner and his quiet constant companion. They make a strong first impression. But who are Brother Blue and Ruth Edmonds Hill? Through the words of those closest to them and whose works and worldviews they have profoundly affected comes a portrait of Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill (Brother Blue) and Ruth Edmonds Hill. It is a portrait of awe-inspiring commitment to the simple idea that telling and hearing each other's stories profoundly changes the world. And it is a picture of an extra-ordinary marriage, a bond of love that radiates out to embrace us all. Ruth Edmonds Hill, Blue’s forever muse, is a distinguished scholar with degrees from U. Mass. and Simmons College. She is the Oral History Coordinator at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University.
Overcoming the poverty and racism of his youth, Hugh Hill triumphed in the world of academia receiving his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, then going on to the Yale School of Drama (MFA) and Union Graduate School (PhD). A military officer, a budding playwright and actor, an ordained minister, Hugh Hill heard a different calling. His metamorphosis into Brother Blue created something new and miraculous. Before storytelling was recognized as an art, Brother Blue brought together the improvisation of jazz, the word-magic of poetry, gesture and dance to create stories that speak from soul to soul. Then, clothed in butterflies, he took the path of the holy fool, taking his tales where they are most needed. On the streets and on stages, in pulpits and prisons, Brother Blue lived his art, risked it all, gave it all, to awaken sleepers and heal this broken world.
Contributors include:

brother blue – The Portrait Series

Auther Warren Lehrer

This book gives voice to the stories behind the stories of Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill, a.k.a. Brother Blue, the official storyteller of Boston. The great grandson of a slave owner and his slave, Blue rises through the white dominated spheres of the military, the ministry and academia, then sheds institutional life to become a roaming town crier, street poet and raconteur — fueled by a transformative power of sacred service. Renowned for spinning parables of struggle and hope on street corners and in prisons, schools, subways, and churches — Brother Blue entrusted me with writing this portrait based on his seldom heard accounts of growing up during the depression under the spell of mythically heroic parents; serving as a black lieutenant during World War II in the segregated US Army; and riotous attempts at turning the hallowed traditions of the Ivy League and the church on its head!

“Unlike many books of oral stories which fall flat on the printed page, Brother Blue: a narrative portrait is so alive, so vibrant, that at times I was sure I was hearing the voice of this remarkable storyteller/philosopher… Absolutely Delightful! The Bloomsbury Review Shanta Nurullah

A Celebration of American Family Folklore — Tales & Traditions from the Smithsonian Collection

Holly Cutting Baker, Amy J. Kotkin & Steven J. Zeitlin

For four consecutive summers, a steady stream of visitors poured into the Family Folklore Tent at the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., carrying photo albums, quilts, scrapbooks, memorabilia, and a dazzling array of family stories in their memories. And, for the first time, one of America’s most distinguished museums was there to record their tales. This book is a treasure. Originally published by Pantheon Books in 1982, it includes a section on “How To Collect Your Own Family Folklore”and offers some of the most illuminating photographs and liveliest stories collected by the Smithsonian. A wonderful tribute to American family life and splendid proof of the vitality of American family lore. Recipient of the Anne Izard Storytellers' Choice Award
312 pages Perfectbound 7 X 9 1/4 $15.95 Item #091
ISBN: 0-938756-36-2 Published – 1992

ISBN: 978-0-938756-36-1

The Ghost & I — Scary Stories for
Participatory Telling

Edited by Jennifer Justice, photographs by Susan Wilson

This anthology of audience participation stories is the next in a series of books that began with the publication of Joining In. Jennifer Justice, a marvelous storyteller from Boston, combines her keen editorial ability with her intimate story sense to bring us into the realm of ghostly humor and fright. TheGhost & I features 16 tales by award-winners Joe Bruchac, Rafe Martin, Heather Forest, Laura Simms, Jay O’Callahan, and more. The stories, geared for ages 5 – 14, vary from funny to frightening, and from simple to complex in plot and imagery. Some of the stories invite a great deal of physical participation, while others simply inspire active listening by repetition and anticipation. As with Joining In, notes for each tale clearly demonstrate how to encourage audience involvement.
132 pages Perfectbound 8 1/2 X 11 $12.95 Item #097
ISBN: 0-938756-37-0 Published – 1992
ISBN: 978-0-938756-37-8

Joining In — An Anthology of Audience
Participation Stories & How to Tell Them

Compiled by Teresa Miller, edited by Norma Livo

Now in its fifth printing, this anthology features stories by Heather Forest, Doug Lipman, Norma Livo, Anne Pellowski, Diane Wolkstein, Bill Harley, and 12 more tellers. The stories are from African, Indian, Native American, and other cultures; some are original. Each of the 18 stories includes notes by the contributor on how to encourage the audience to participate in the telling of the story. The first in our series, this anthology provides a wealth of information on storytelling and audience participation techniques.

Storytelling and The Art of Imagination

We are pleased to re-issue this classic in the field of storytelling as a healing art. It offers tools for story-making and story-telling through examples and exercises. Nancy Mellon's deep sense of mission and her commitment to creativity encourage us to tap into the vast creative wisdom within the archetypal characters, landscapes and plots found in tales throughout the world. Many teachers, students, community leaders, parents, therapists and other professionals have carried this inspirational book with them, dog-eared and worn, in backpacks and purses, to help them meet daily challenges Storytelling and the Art of Imagination portrays adults and children finding healing perspectives and creative courage in the midst of even the most dire stresses of daily life. Some of the many tools Mellon discusses and demonstrates include rhythms of voice and speech, movement and direction, visualization, and the imaginative wealth of symbolism in the natural world and in the archetypal forces that inform the healing imagination.